This thread popped up in the history of the dbinfosource and caught my attention for a few reasons. First, it represents the last time Dale said something here. Which sort of aligns with when I thought he left, which was on the eve of Trump winning the 2016 election. Turns out, I was a bit off, he stuck around for the first 6 months of Trump's first presidency. 

Then he left and he went out posting a video of lies he felt Obama told. Trump, during his first presidency then went on to shatter all records when it came to telling lies to the American public as president. Dale was not here to comment on that so, I can't say I know what he thought of that. 

In this presidency, since Dale's video he went out on seemed to be mostly about government transparency, the Trump administration has gone on to attempt to be the least transparent presidency in our history, even trying to scrub government websites and records of past statements Trump made and even remove public speeches he has given or to clean them up. They have actually banned certain words being used in any government communications or statements. 

Trump during his first hundred days of this presidency has again told a whopping amount of lies. I recall Marc, another guy that posted here, once said he hated liars, could not stand them...and yet, pretty certain he made clear he voted for our greatest liar, three times. Oh well. 

Another thing it took a long, long time to notice, because it had to be done over many years, is the media on the Right, used the same attack over and over again going back to Obama. I don't believe they used it prior to that, but it has been in rotation ever since, which is that the Democratic president or candidate for president can't speak or put together a coherent sentence without being in front of a teleprompter. 

They said this about Obama (this was laughable as there are literally thousands of examples of him speaking eloquently not in front of a prompter), they said it about Biden (he had one horrible and embarrassing debate but Biden was also always great off the cuff), and the said it about Kamala. Who also did not require a teleprompter to speak to people but like Trump, the right-wing media likes to play their greatest hits. Can't speak without a teleprompter did become one of their favorite tunes...because it worked.

Sure, fair to knock Biden in the final year of his presidency, but Obama and Kamala, basically ridiculous to make this charge about them. Not saying Dale did that, he was last here in 2016.

I mean, this all falls back on what people will believe and if you repeat a lie long enough, some people will accept it as a truth. 

I am not saying any of this to dunk on Dale, not at all, in fact as I have said before the very first person on this website that said he endorsed and would vote for Obama for president was Dale. He endorsed Obama when he was running in the primary against Hillary and other Democrats. He spoke very highly of Obama then. I can't recall if Dale said he voted for Obama for president when he first ran, but I do remember he once thought very highly of him. Obviously, Dale soured on Obama over time.

It is just interesting to track how we got to a second Trump presidency and the mess it has left our country in. 

Which brings me to the other thing that made me bring this thread back, Trump openly stated that they would not touch Medicaid with his "big beautiful bill" well, that was a giant bold-faced lie. In fact when he met with Republican senators just yesterday, I think, supposedly Trump did not know they were slashing Medicaid, that some 12-14 million people are going to lose their insurance, many of the his voters in Red States, and hospitals in rural areas, his voters again, would shutdown. A Republican senator had to tell him, "No, we are slashing Medicaid. Gone. We not only are touching it, we are going to drop a giant bomb on it, people are going to die."

But in the words of Republican senator and national disgrace Joni Ernst..."Everybody dies."

Not sure I believe the story that Trump did not know Medicaid is on the chopping block, I don't think he would care. The wealthy people he wants to appeal to are not on Medicaid. 

I know Dale would understand the harm tariffs would do to our economy and how that harm will compound and snowball. Combining tariffs with this "big beautiful bill" is what most economists and business leaders call a death knell for the United States being an economic leader in the world and will spell disaster for regular working people. Pretty certain Dale, a money guy, would get that. 

But, all of this is too late anyway, because here we are and away we go. 

The question we face is how do we repair the damage? How do we try to slow the bleeding as much as we can until we can start the surgery to save the patient? Can we save the patient? 

In a post up above Dan says to me that I am Rick Beato and that made me laugh, which was good. But I think I am Rick Beato it is only in as much as I am a guy in my late 50s yelling at the sky. Beato does it about the state of music, I do it at the state of the world. If you look up "old man screaming at the sky" sure, there could be a photo of one of us there. Pretty much any of us here. Not that I am calling any of you kind people old. 

I just think we are strapped into the roller coaster, we are climbing that first big hill, and we are hearing click, click, click as it climbs, may as well be tick, tick, tick, and when all of this Trump/Project 2025 policy really kicks in, that's it. We are going to be plunging downward at full speed...in this case though there will be blood flying in all directions, people around the world will be dying, it will all be the fault of Trump and his good squad, and he will blame all of it on Joe Biden. Not sure who would be clueless enough to believe that but...they are out there. 

Trump supporters asking me "What is a tariff?" will echo in my head like a gunshot for some time. 

I know, thanks Reg for that uplifting post to kick off the holiday weekend. I am sorry and I don't feel good about typing any of it. I'm not a freak that gets off on other people's suffering. I did not really realize how many of those freaks we have but from time to time, I do get my nose rubbed in it. Like when I saw that the GOP is selling Alligator Alcatraz t-shirts like it is a Disney attraction and sales of those shirts supposedly skyrocketed 500% when Trump paid the place a visit. 

I mean sure, great, buy and wear your shirts that say in big bright colors "I am a sick fuck." because at least we can spot you and move away from you. 

 Here's a number for those people, 6% of the people that Trump's thugs have arrested have a criminal record. That does not mean 6% are violent criminals nor that they committed a violent crime here. It could be any kind of crime. Jaywalking, shoplifting, drinking and driving (I point that out because it is a crime that the vast majority of Trump supporters I know have been charged with...it is a minor crime unless you killed someone which triggers a different charge) just any kind of crime. Most have a misdemeanor offense. Meaning a crime they don't send you to jail for but now, in our country, that means you can be snatched off the street and sent to a prison in a country like Sudan or Salvador with no due process, no day in court, and nobody will see you ever again. 

And all this whining on my part and I have not even touched on the sickest parts of any of this. I am still just talking about stuff that I thought would be common sense for people. We, well not we, the Trump administration, are bringing babies into court, 2 year olds, 4 year olds, little children, and a judge has to tell the children their parents have been arrested and will not be coming home from work today, and there is a lawyer present to translate to these kids what the judge is saying, and the lawyers doing the translating often are openly weeping trying to tell a child "We've completely fucked you and removed you from your parents and there is little hope you will see them again. Our country now wants you to suffer horribly...alone...without your family."

Some of these lawyers hired to translate have to ask to stop the proceedings over and over to leave the courtroom to have a breakdown, weep uncontrollably because their fucking job is to tell babies we don't know when or if you will ever see your mom or dad again. 

This is now the United States, as governed by Donald Trump, a Republican run Senate, Republican run House, and Republican controlled Supreme court. They own all of this fuckery. All of it. 

Buy your t-shirts, wear your hats, know what and who they represent. 

Enjoy the fourth. This is the country we now celebrate.